Six Months Later
‘Jenny, are you going to get dressed or what?’
I checked the time: 6.00. ‘Shit!’ The dinner started in forty-five minutes, and I was definitely not ready. I scooted off the hotel bed and started frantically pulling a dress over my hips while attempting to simultaneously apply lipstick.
Jackson was leaning against the mini-bar, a wry smile playing on his lips as he watched me try to wrestle my hair into something vaguely resembling a French twist. After two failed attempts, I gave up, tipped my head upside-down, and sprayed my roots with an ungodly amount of hairspray.
‘Do I look like a member of Whitesnake?’ I asked as I studied my reflection in the mirror.
Jackson appeared behind me and slid his hands around my waist. ‘Nah … though you do look a little like the woman in the “Here I Go Again” video, which is nicely fulfilling a teenage fantasy of mine.’
I whacked him on the arm. ‘You were eight when that video came out.’
He ducked out of reach and grinned. ‘What can I say? I’m an old soul. Anyway,’ he said, leaning in for a kiss, ‘you look gorgeous. The prettiest maid of honour I’ve ever seen.’
‘Do you think I’m a matron of honour now? Since I’m a divorcee?’
‘Say that word again,’ he said, pulling me towards him.
‘Which one? Matron?’
‘No. The other one.’
‘Divorcee?’
He kissed my collarbone and then moved up my neck. ‘Man, you make that word sound sexy.’ I felt his hands wander up towards the zipper of my dress. I could smell his cologne, something woodsy and crisp, and underneath it, the smell of his skin. I felt myself weakening. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if we were ten minutes late … He nipped my earlobe with his teeth. Or twenty.
‘Stop!’ I forced myself to pull away. ‘We can’t be late – I’m giving a speech!’
He sighed. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘but I expect you to re-enact that video tonight when we get back here.’
I checked my teeth in the mirror for lipstick. ‘Doesn’t that involve cartwheeling across two Rolls Royces?’ I tossed over my shoulder.
‘I’m pretty sure I saw a Dodge and a Honda parked outside. What do you say?’
I pulled a face. ‘Not quite the same effect.’
‘No imagination,’ he sighed. ‘That’s your problem. Shall we?’ He offered me his elbow and I slid my hand through it.
‘Let’s.’
The venue was predictably bonkers. Usually, rehearsal dinners took place in staid restaurants with linen tablecloths and guttering candles. Isla had chosen an enormous concrete warehouse space in the depths of Queens. The theme, of course, was Up All Night.
I had already laid out a pair of Advil and a glass of water on the bedside table back at the hotel.
The cab pulled up and the cabbie shook his head. ‘If you think I’m coming back here, you’re nuts,’ he called as he sped off into the night.
Wait, I should probably explain. Yes, Isla was getting married. No, I couldn’t believe it.
She’d met him four months ago at an underground S&M club in the Meatpacking District. ‘It was great, babe,’ she’d said when she called the next morning (or, more accurately, the next afternoon, which is when she woke up). ‘This guy in a mask came up to me and started spanking me with this bamboo cane.’
‘That sounds awful!’
‘No, it was totally hot. And I could tell by the way he was spanking me that he was really caring. You know?’
Not really, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were madly, insanely in love and had spent the past four months shacking up in his TriBeca loft. And now they were getting married.
Isla let out a scream when she spotted us walk through the door. ‘You’re here!’ she cried as she launched herself at the two of us. She was, of course, wearing a silver bodysuit, stilettos and body glitter. ‘You look amazing,’ she said as she squeezed me tightly in her arms. ‘Like one of those video babes from the 80s.’
I shot Jackson a knowing glance, and he laughed. ‘And you!’ Isla said, turning her attention on him. ‘You look like a sexy urban cowboy!’ It was true, he did. He was wearing his battered old cowboy boots, with a dark, slim-cut suit, and one of those bolero ties I’d always made fun of until he put one on, at which point I found it insanely attractive. But then again, I found pretty much everything he put on insanely attractive. It was convenient, that.
‘So,’ I said, ‘how’s it going?’
‘Pretty good,’ Isla beamed. ‘I mean, the space is amazing, and we have the DJ until 6 a.m., and enough MDMA to keep everyone happy until Tuesday.’
I spotted her parents huddled in a corner, her mother wearing a pink feather boa and her father sporting a jaunty top hat. Isla followed my gaze and laughed. ‘Obviously all family members have been told that this thing ends promptly at 10.30,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s a relief. I really didn’t want your father coming up to me and stroking me with a feather duster.’
Isla laughed. ‘I can’t guarantee that won’t happen, but I can promise you it won’t be drug-related. Are you ready for the speech?’
I nodded nervously. Jackson threw a protective arm around me and pulled me towards him. ‘She’s been practising like a lunatic,’ he said. ‘She didn’t want to leave anything to chance.’
Isla reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘Some things never change. I’ve just got to check on the caterer – you guys go get yourselves a drink and mingle, okay? When I get back, I want to hear all about San Francisco.’
Jackson and I had moved to San Francisco a few months ago. After I’d surprised him in New Deal, we agreed that we needed to at least be on the same continent if we were going to make things work. I’d always liked the idea of living on the West Coast – even though it hadn’t been part of my master plan – and the insurance company in London had an office there and agreed to a transfer. For Jackson, it was the perfect base to get to LA or Vancouver for work, so we found a pair of apartments and signed the leases.
That’s right, two separate apartments. We were taking things slow this time. Letting things happen when they happened. It felt good to let go of a timescale. It felt right.
Jackson fetched two glasses of bourbon from the bar and offered one to me. Across the room, I watched Isla wrap her arms around her fiancé and reach up on her toes to kiss him. They glowed with happiness.
We raised our glasses in a toast.
‘To happy endings,’ Jackson said, clinking his glass to mine.
‘To happy endings,’ I said, ‘whatever road it takes to get there.’